Death 1913

Editor: Here we have Christian Rohlfs' 1913 ink drawing titled "Death." It’s intensely dark and, well, a bit unsettling. The crude, almost violent lines contribute to the sense of unease. What strikes you most about this piece? Curator: Unsettling is right, and deliberately so, I think. Rohlfs uses the starkness of the ink, almost a woodcut effect, to hammer home the brutal reality of mortality. You see the raw energy of Expressionism here, a primal scream committed to paper. The figure of Death isn't some romantic, flowing robe specter, but a looming, almost architectural force, don't you think? Almost suffocating. Editor: Absolutely, there's nothing delicate about it. The geometric quality you mentioned, particularly in the figure of death, gives it this angularity which makes it so much harder to look at. I was expecting something ethereal, perhaps. Curator: Precisely. That harshness is the point. And look at how little detail is given to the figure on the bed. A few lines suggesting bones, vulnerability stripped bare. This isn’t about mourning a specific person; it's about confronting the universal terror of the unknown. Are we more sensitive to mortality in this era than they were then, or perhaps less so? Editor: It makes you wonder. I’d never considered Expressionism so raw on this topic before, this is a new insight for me. Curator: And perhaps that’s the most potent thing art can do. It rattles our cages, forces us to consider the uncomfortable truths we so often try to ignore.